Adongo attacked over open letter to BoG Governor

General News of Monday, 11 February 2019

Source: www.ghanaweb.com

Member of Parliament for Bolgatanga Central and Member of the Finance Committee of Parliament, Isaac Adongo has been slammed by Dr. Robert Owusu-Gyekyi, an economist and banker for writing an open letter to the Governor of Bank of Ghana, Dr. Ernest Addison instead of exploring the basic standard processes available for legislators in that regard.

Mr. Adongo in a letter to the Governor scolded him and asked that he stops ‘cooking’ up the country’s economic data.

According to him, the Bank of Ghana had adopted some ‘uncouth’ ways of adding up figures from Ghana’s Petroleum Holding Funds to bloat the Net International Reserves of the nation.

“…BoG unethically and unprofessionally decided to falsify Ghana’s NIR to mislead investors and the markets by suddenly adding Ghana’s Petroleum Holding Funds to our net reserves… The Petroleum Holding Funds have encumbered funds which are not available to BoG and cannot be added to its reserves,” he noted.

“Mr. Governor, I want to take the opportunity to urge you to desist from such behaviour and to stop cooking Ghana’s economic data. Let us be true and consistent in approach as prescribed by international standards and tell the true story of Ghana’s economic performance.”

Bemoaning the increasingly diminishing credibility and confidence in the Central Bank, Adongo observed some ‘worrying issues’ bedeviling the Bank of Ghana which includes; Concealment and manipulation of Net International Reserves and Manipulative Policy rate cuts and Policy Distortions.

But reacting to the content of the letter, Dr. Owusu-Gyekyi said Adongo was ignorant.

Not only that, the economist jabbed the lawmaker for using the wrong approach in communicating his grievances.

He said: “First as a member of parliament, you should know that there are standard processes and procedures for demanding information or clarification from the central bank, that is, if the locus is there at all. Clearly, this does not include writing open and rude letters to the Governor and publishing it widely on social media.”

“Second, I am very disappointed with the tone and the inherent rudeness of your letter, which should not be part of the job description of an “honourable” Member of Parliament. You should know by now that monetary policy is not conducted on social media. Next time, I will advise you to go through your parliamentary processes to make any official requests and be civilized about how you go about it.”

Below are Adongo’s open letter and Owusu-Gyekyi’s response